Understanding of preterm infant cognitive competences across the first year of life is limited regarding the developmental constructs of continuity, stability, coherence, and predictive validity as well as how they manifest by age and country of origin. This prospective longitudinal study examined and compared mean-level continuity,…

This research investigated the developing inter-relationships between language, graphic symbolism and symbolic play both concurrently and longitudinally from the fourth to the fifth year of childhood. Sixty children ("n"?=?60) aged between 3 and 4?years completed multiple assessments of language and assessments of graphic symbolism,…

Referential communication accuracy of mother and child pairs when the children were four years old predicted children's cognitive development one and two years later in the United States and Japan. Main effects were found to be significant even when mother IQ, SES, and child ability at age four were partialled out of the analysis. (JMB)

The low predictive validity of infant tests is discussed in light of current issues in developmental psychology. Considers continuity and discontinuity in the development of early cognitive competence, intellectual heterogeneity problems, and individual-environment transactions. Provides suggestions for increasing predictive validity and indicates…

On the basis of a study involving 40 first-grade students, compares Pascual-Leone's and Keating and Bobbitt's developmental theories of information processing by contrasting their predictions about a classification task. Results falsified Keating and Bobbitt's model. Predictions from Pascual-Leone's theory were almost wholly confirmed. (RH)

The behavioral development of rural Guatemalan infants was assessed shortly after birth on a Neonatal Assessment Scale (NAS) and at 6-, 15-, and 24-months-of-age on a Composite Infant Scale (CIS). Summary variables based on NAS performance poorly predicted later assessed performance even as recently as six months after birth. The CIS modestly…

This study investigated whether a global cognitive development construct could effectively predict both concurrent and future Grade 1 achievement in reading, writing, and mathematics and whether there were gender differences in the relationship between the construct and achievement. Sixty-five first grade pupils were selected for the study.…

This study attempts to identify potential school problems in preschool children in order to facilitate the provision of relevant information for systematic screening and early guidance. Data from the first 14 months (to the end of the preschool period) of a longitudinal study extending from 4 1/2 years of age to the end of second grade are…